I don't just want to fuck her.
I mean, I do. I want to fuck her until she can't walk. I want to bend her over my desk, over her kitchen counter, over the hood of this car. I want to hear her scream my name the way she’s never screamed his.
But it’s darker than that.
It’s primal.
I want to breed her.
The thought hits me hard, making my cock twitch in my trousers.
I want to put my baby in her.
I want to plant my flag in the most permanent way possible. I want to watch her belly swell with my heir. I want to bind her to me so tightly that she can never leave, never look at another man, never doubt where she belongs.
Ryder gave her a promise ring?
I’m going to give her a life.
I’m going to give her a son who actually has a spine.
I shift in my seat, uncomfortable with the intensity of my own thoughts but unable to stop them.
Through the window, her shadow stops pacing. She sinks down, maybe onto the couch.
I check the time on my dash. Midnight.
It’s Christmas season. The air smells like snow and pine and exhaust.
Does she know?
Does she have any idea that while she’s crying over a boy who never deserved her, the man who is going to own her soul is sitting fifty feet away?
I could go up there.
I have a key.
Well, I have a master key to the building. I own the management company that owns the complex. She doesn’t know that, either. I bought the building six months ago just to make sure the maintenance requests in her unit were prioritized.
I could walk in there right now. I could comfort her. I could tell her that Ryder is trash and that I can give her the world.
But she’s not ready.
She’s angry. I saw the fire in her eyes when she left the ballroom.
And anger... anger is useful.
Grief makes people weak. Anger makes them reckless.
If I go to her now, I’m the comforting father figure. I’m the shoulder to cry on.
I don’t want to be her friend. I don’t want to be her father-in-law.
I want to be her monster.
I want her to come to me.
I want her to be so blindingly furious at Ryder that she looks for the biggest, sharpest weapon she can find to hurt him.
